&nbspSeptember 19 - October 7, 2018

No Dark in Sight

No Dark in Sight: Light and the Night it Transforms.
When the night looks like day, we have a problem. It’s not natural. There is a dark side to light. Artificial light unplugs the circadian clock from its evolutionary outlet. This work is the result of a humanities-centered collaborative sustainability grant I received to photograph sky glow, light trespass, and light pollution — as cause and effect. Planetary well-being is rapidly changing due to the presence of artificial light. I am photographing sites that meet the ratings of the Bortle Dark-Sky scale as dangerously or recklessly over lit tropospheric nighttime space. Light affirms life, but it has the potential to alter or end it. As a photographer, I was educated to see light as an ally. I still do, but only in the context of its appropriate and precautionary applications. At night, one needs look no further than the cities we inhabit for pedestrian evidence of unnaturally lit space. We should wake up to natural light as a sovereign right because we are not yet waking up to its artificial use as a risk factor threatening biodiversity, health, public policy, and sustainable longevity.
Quality of light affects quality of life. This work conveys why human civilization is losing a vital connection to both.